Abstract

A simple algorithm is derived to retrieve the aerosol backscattering and
extinction vertical profiles from simultaneously detected ground and space
elastic lidar signals, without any a priori hypothesis on
aerosol particles properties. This technique can be applied at any wavelength
whenever two “counter looking” lidars are available and
the atmosphere can be considered horizontally homogeneous in a spatial scale of
the order of the distance between the two lidar beams. To test the accuracy of
the algorithm a numerical simulation has been performed. Moreover, it has been
applied in a real case to level 1 products from CALIPSO.

Time series of Napoli RCS profile: pink lines indicate the limits of time
integration, and dash line is the overpass time (a); CALIPSO total ABS
(km-1sr-1), measured from 20 August 2006,
01:10:15.4662 GMT to 01:23:34.4432 GMT. The thick pink line marks the
overpass of CALIPSO spacecraft (b).